Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to take a moment to connect before you
Speaker 1: end a meeting or any other professional conversation. You work
Speaker 1: with people, and these little moments of connection can make
Speaker 1: an entire work day feel more meaningful. We are all busy,
Speaker 1: and if you are listening to this podcast, my guess
Speaker 1: is that you get a lot done in a day.
Speaker 1: You move judiciously from one thing to the next, and
Speaker 1: that is great. But even as you are doing that,
Speaker 1: it is possible to create meaningful moments during any task
Speaker 1: that involves other people. Doing so is often more productive
Speaker 1: in the long haul than being all business. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: already start most meetings with the little chit chat saying
Speaker 1: hello before getting down to business. Today's tip is about
Speaker 1: continuing with that spirit and putting a tiny bit of connection.
Speaker 1: At the end of any meeting or conversation. After you
Speaker 1: have summed up key takeaways and restated any action items,
Speaker 1: you can take a moment to do something to honor
Speaker 1: the relationship that is connect before you disconnect. For instance,
Speaker 1: if you are leading a team meeting, celebrate something that
Speaker 1: happened with the team. Maybe it's a whole team win,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's something cool that one person did. You
Speaker 1: can take about sixty seconds to let that person bask
Speaker 1: in your praise before everyone goes out to get more coffee.
Speaker 1: Other times, the final connection can be entirely personal. Maybe
Speaker 1: a client's daughter just started kindergarten. After you have worked
Speaker 1: through the planned content of your call and as you
Speaker 1: are wrapping up, you might say, well, I have another
Speaker 1: call in just a few minutes, but before I go,
Speaker 1: tell me how is Sierra doing in school. At the
Speaker 1: end of a weekly team meeting, as everyone is gathering
Speaker 1: their things to leave, you might ask what people are
Speaker 1: looking forward to for the upcoming long weekend. Before you
Speaker 1: get up to leave your boss's office after a one
Speaker 1: on one, you might congratulate her on her favorite team's
Speaker 1: recent win and ask her what she thought of the game.
Speaker 1: Everybody has stuff to do, and I am not recommending
Speaker 1: that meetings expand to include lots of personal conversation. This
Speaker 1: idea to connect before you disconnect only works in scenarios
Speaker 1: where meetings generally do start and end on time and
Speaker 1: don't get sidetracked to discussions of things like office fridge policies,
Speaker 1: you need to have the discipline to get through your
Speaker 1: material in enough time time that you leave space for
Speaker 1: people to get to their next meeting and to have
Speaker 1: a two minute conversation about something. You could even phrase
Speaker 1: it as a lightning round question. We have two minutes
Speaker 1: before I am shipping everyone out of here to their
Speaker 1: next thing. I want to know what everyone's doing this weekend. Go.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. People want to work with people
Speaker 1: who care about them. When you remember that the client
Speaker 1: just got a new dog or her kid just started
Speaker 1: at a new school, she feels more positively about working
Speaker 1: with you in the future. Same for team members. When
Speaker 1: you care what they are looking forward to, they want
Speaker 1: to work with you again, and that saves you so
Speaker 1: much time and effort. When you are staffing up projects,
Speaker 1: people are asking to work with you instead of trying
Speaker 1: to avoid you. How cool is that? And you'll enjoy
Speaker 1: work more if you have more interesting conversations, which tend
Speaker 1: to come from taking an interest in people's lives. So
Speaker 1: don't be too quick to say goodbye in your work
Speaker 1: calls and meetings. Take just a moment to connect Before
Speaker 1: you disconnect, work may start to feel better and you
Speaker 1: may become more effective at your job too. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.